The Cost Of Being A Single Mother

The labor force participation rate for women has increased tremendously over the past four decades. While this rise undoubtedly reflects growth in economic opportunities for women, a concurrent rise in households with two working parents has presented its own set of challenges. A recent Pew Research Center Report also finds that the share of married parent households in which both parents work full time has gone up from 31% in 1970 to 46% today. Based on a survey of 1,807 parents with children younger than 18, the Pew report finds that more than half of these households say that balancing work with raising a family has been quite difficult. Thus, it is not surprising that the OECD Better Life Index ranks the United States a dismal 29 out of 36 OECD countries on “work-life balance.” With women still shouldering a larger share of parenting responsibility, working mothers, particularly full-timers, were more likely to report work and childcare as a tough balancing act.

While the focus of the Pew report on two-parent families is helpful, it leaves out the particular challenges faced by single mothers who shoulder nearly the full responsibility of bringing up their children while trying to retain a job and earn a living. How are single mothers faring in terms of employment and earnings?

Employment of single mothers

The Employment Characteristics of Families Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics explores the unemployment rate for families. This survey shows that the unemployment rate for women who “maintain families without spouses present,” in other words, single mothers who are heads of households, is currently at 7.6%. This is significantly higher than the average U.S. unemployment rate today of 5%. For married mothers, the corresponding number is at 4%.

The chart below shows the unemployment rate for single mothers versus all married women. The data series for married mothers is only available from 2009, so the chart also compares single mothers to all married women. For these women, the unemployment rate is currently at 3%. In fact, over the last ten years, single mothers have consistently had unemployment rates that were on average five percentage points higher than for married women. However, part of this difference is because fewer married women, especially mothers, participate in the labor market than do single mothers.

Earnings of single mothers

A little known fact is that single women, and single mothers, on average, earn marginally more than married women. While data on earnings of married mothers is not available, it is likely that married mothers earn even less than married women. Again, this is likely driven by the fact that the labor force participation rate for single mothers is higher than for married women. In 2014, a single mother earned $36,780 while a married woman earned $36,016. However, while the earnings of married women have increased by 8% over the last ten years, single mothers have had average earnings fall by 6%. This is shown in the chart below.

The real difference is in total family incomes. While married women earn less on average today than single mothers, their overall family income is significantly higher due to the earnings of their spouse. As per the Census Bureau (table F-10), in 2014, married couple families with one or more children under 18 years, earned an average income of $111,278. In other words, traditional two-parent families earned an income that was more than three times higher than for households headed by a single mother.

Policy ideas

As the Pew Report suggests, the challenges faced by married parent families are not trivial. However, the challenges are magnified for single parents with limited resources. A simple solution might seem to be to “encourage” marriage or, at the very least, adopt policies that discourage unwanted early pregnancies in unmarried women, as I discussed in my previous post. Marriage allows better pooling of resources between parents and delayed childbirth is linked with better outcomes for children. Moving beyond these options, there are also policies that we can adopt to make life less of a struggle for working parents and particularly single mothers. One such proposal is the federal provision of paid family leave, as I have written about earlier, so that women do not have to choose between keeping their jobs and earnings and spending time on maternity leave. Other possibilities include expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit program to supplement incomes at the bottom and expansions of the Child and Dependent Care Credit to help families meet childcare expenses.

As family structures, social norms and economic opportunities change, so too does policy need to evolve to address these challenges. To ensure a stable, successful future for children growing up in these different types of family environments, we need to give these ideas the serious thought they deserve, today.

I am currently a Resident Scholar in economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. I received my Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2005. At AEI, my research has focused on income inequality and economic mo...